


Becoming

by rulerofthepotatoes



Category: Midsommar (2019)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Cult Mentality, During Canon, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:07:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26171689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rulerofthepotatoes/pseuds/rulerofthepotatoes
Summary: Dani, as she becomes the May Queen.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	Becoming

**Author's Note:**

> I've posted four whole Midsommar fics and yet I still honestly have no idea how to accurately tag for this movie.

They gather around the pole, hands together, and with a clap, the music starts. The other girls bow, but she does not. She is still not quite sure what to do, there has been no real instruction, and besides, to her, bowing does not feel _right_.

She follows the other girls’ leads when the dance begins, but she is still unsure of herself, especially as the dance begins to change and instructions are made in a language she does not understand. She worries too, at first, when some of the girls fall. 

All of the girls have smiles on their faces though, and it reassures her enough that she finds she is smiling as well. 

The dance goes on; the music changes yet remains the same. She is unsteady, but on her feet. She is both sure and unsure about whether or not she will fall. 

Eventually, she is no longer unsure about what she is doing. Somehow, she _feels_ the dance in a way she did not when it had just begun. Though she cannot explain it, she sees more than what is right in front of her; she sees and feels so many things she knows, but cannot explain.

Inexplicably, she begins to understand what the other girls are saying, even though she knows that she still does not speak Swedish. 

There are only three of them left dancing around the pole. One moment she is laughing and dancing with the other two, and the next, the girls have fallen to the ground. 

The music swells to a crescendo before it suddenly stops. 

Once again, she can no longer understand the words that are being said by the woman directing the dance, but what she says seems to be a declaration as the others sitting on the grass suddenly rise to their feet while raising their hands in celebration as they come closer to the pole. 

Softer music starts, and suddenly she is declared May Queen. She has won a contest she did not know she was competing in, is given a bright new flower crown, and everyone is so happy for her but all she is is confused.

For a moment, she is frightened when she sees her mother. She did not ask for this and no longer understands what is happening as she thought she did during the dance.

But then, blessedly, Pelle comes up to her, smiling broader than she has ever seen, and congratulates her. He calls her _May Queen_ , as if it’s a title; like it means something more than simply a phrase used for the winner of dance. 

He kisses her, and she _feels_ it, how he kisses her like she is something special, something _above_. 

The Harga have her step on a small platform and raise her up, and only then does she realize that, to them, she truly is. That the dance was not just some simple competition she was unwittingly part of and did not understand; that the dance was something _more._

It did not feel as if she should bow at the beginning of the dance because she was already on her way to becoming what the other Harga already seemed to know her to be. 

She wavered slightly when she first stepped on the platform, but when the others raised her up, she was steady on her feet. This was where she was meant to be. 

The dance was her test; her becoming; her acceptance; her crowning. She knows what she is now, more than she ever has before.

She _is_ the May Queen and the May Queen is her. She is Harga and the Harga are her people. 

It is freeing in a way she has never felt before. Never in her life, not even before her family’s deaths, had Dani ever felt such belonging, such peace.


End file.
